lu <( ,''1* '■ r>'! ^ 8 5^ Class <>w each other unerringly wherever they meet ; tp ^hey of the inner shrine, gentlemen heart and "ELLEN! ELLEN!" 103 life ; be they of the outer court, gentlemeu in feehug and demeanor. No disguise delays this recognition. No strange- ness of place and circumstances prevents it. The men meet. The magnetism passes between them. All is said without words. Gentleman knows gen- tleman by what we name instinct. But observe that this thing, instinct, is character in its finest, keenest, largest, and most concentrated action. It is the spirit's touch. John Brent and I, not to be deemed intruders, were walking away from the neat wagon at the upper end of the Mormon camp, when an oldish man beside the wagon gave us " Good evening." " Good evening, gentlemen," said the wan, gray-haired, shadowy man before us. And that was all. It was enough. We knew each other ; we him and he us. Men of the same order, and so brothers and friends. Here was improbability that made interest at once. Greater to us than to him. We were not out of place. He was, and in the wrong company. Brent and I looked at each other. We had half divined our new brother's character at the first glance. How legible are some men ! All, indeed, that have had, or are to have, a history, are books in a well-known tongue to trained decipherers. But some trao-edies stare at us with such an earnest 104 JOHN BEENT. dreariness from helpless faces, that we road with one look. We turn away sadly. We have com- prehended the whole history of past sorrow ; we prophesy the coming despair. I will not now anticipate the unfinished, mel- ancholy story we read in this new face. An Englishman, an unmistakable gentleman, and in a Mormon camp, — there was tragedy enough. Enough to whisper us both to depart, and not grieve ourselves with vain pity ; enough to im- peratively command us to stay and see whether we, as true knights, foes of wrong, succorers of feebleness, had any business here. The same instinct that revealed to us one of our order where he ought not to be, warned us that he might have claims on us, and we duties toward him. We returned his salutation. We were about to continue the conversation, when he opened a fresh page of the tragedy. He called, in a voice too sad to be querulous, — a flickering voice, never to be fed vigorous again by any lusty hope, — "Ellen! Ellen!" " What, father dear ? " " The water boils. Please bring the tea, my child." "Yes, father dear." The answers came from within the wagon. "ELLEN! ELLEN!" 105 rhey "were the song of the bird whose nest we had approved. A sad song. A woman's voice can tell a long history of sorrow in a single word. This wonderful instrument, our voice, alters its timbre with every note it yields, as the face changes with every look, until at last the domi- nant emotion is master, and gives quality to tone and character to expression. It was a sad, sweet voice that answered the old gentleman's call. A lady's voice, — the voice of a high-bred woman, delicate, distinct, self-pos- sessed. That sound itself was tragedy in such a spot. No transitory disappointment or distress ever imprinted its mark so deeply upon a heart's utterance. The sadness here had been life-long, had begun long ago, in the days when childhood should have gone thoughtless, or, if it noted the worth of its moments, should have known them as jubilee every one ; — a sadness so habitual that it had become the permanent atmosphere of the life. The voice announced the person, and com- manded all the tenderest sympathy brother-man can give to any sorrowful one in the sisterhood of woman. And yet this voice, that with so subtle a revela- tion gave us the key of the unseen lady's history, asked for no pity. There was no moan in it, and no plaint. Not even a murmur, nor any rebel bitterness or sourness for defeat. The undertone 5* ^OG JOHN BREHT. was brave. K not hopeful, still resolute. No despair could come within sound of that sweet music of defiance. The tones that challenge Fate were subdued away ; but not the tones that calmly answer, " No surrender," to Fate's un- timely paean. It was a happy thing to know that, sorrowful as the life might be, here was an impregnable soul. There was a manner of half command and half dependence in the father's call to his daugh- ter, — a weak nature, still asserting the control it could not sustain over a stronger. And in her response an indulgence of this feeble attempt at authority. Does all this seem much to find in the few sim- ple words we had heard ? The analysis might be made infinitely more thorough. Evetylook, tone, gesture of a man is a symbol of his com- plete nature. If we apply the microscope se- verely enough, we can discern the fine organism by which the soul sends itself out in every act of the being. And the more perfectly developed the creature, the more significant, and yet the more mysterious, is every habit, and every mo- tion mightier than habit, of body or soul. In an instant, the lady so sweetly heralded stepped from beneath the hood of the wagon, and sprang to the ground in more busy and cheerful guise than her voice had promised. "ELLEN! ELLEN!" 107 Again the same subtle magnetism between lier and us. We could not have been more convinced of her right to absolute respect and consideration if she had entered to us in the dusky light of a rich drawing-room, or if we had been presented in due form at a picnic of the grandest world, with far other scenery than this of a " desart idle," tenanted for the moment by a Mormon caravan. The lady, like her father, felt that wo were gentlemen, and therefore would compre- hend her. She saluted us quietly. There was in her manner a tacit and involuntary protest against circumstances, just enough for dignity. A vulgar woman would have snatched up and put on clumsily a have-seen-better-days air. This lady knew herself, and knew that she could not be mistaken for other than she was. Her base background only made her nobility more salient. She did not need any such background, nor the contrast of the drudges and meretricious frights of the caravan. She could have borne fall light without any shade. A woman fit to stand peer among the peerless. We could not be astonished at this apparition. We had divined her father rightly, as it after- ward proved. Her voice has already half dis- closed her character. Let her face continue the development. We had already heard her called 108 JOIIN BRENT. by her Christian name, Ellen. That seemed to bring us, from the beginning, into a certain inti- macy with the woman as woman, sister, daugh- ter, and to subordinate the circumstances of the life, to be in future suggested by the social name, to the life itself. Ellen, then, the unknown lady of the Mormon caravan, was a high-bred beauty. Englishwomen generally lack the fine edge of such beauty as hers. She owed her dark fairness, perhaps, to a Sicilian bride, whom her Norman ancestor had pirated away from some old playground of Pros- erpine, and brought with him to England when he came there as conqueror. Her nose was not quite aquiline. Positive aquiline noses should be cut off. They are ugly ; they are immoral ; they are sensual ; they love money ; they enjoy others' misery. The worst birds have hooked beaks ; and so the worst men, the eagles and vultures of the race. Cut off the beaks ; they betoken a cruel pounce, a greedy clutch, and a propensity to carrion. Save the exceptions, but extirpate the brood. This lady's nose was sensitive and proud. It is well when a face has its share of pride in the nose. Then the lips can give themselves solely to sweetness and archness. Besides, pride, or, if the word is dreaded, a conscious and resolute personality, should be the characteristic of a face. "ELLEN! ELLEN!" 109 The nose should express this quality. Above, the eyes may changefuUy flash intelligence ; below, the mouth may smile affection ; the cheeks may give balance and equability ; the chin may show the cloven dimple of a tender and many-sided, or the point of a single-hearted and concentrated nature ; the brow, a non-committal feature, may look wise or wiseacre ; but every one of them is only tributary to the nose, standing royally m the midst, and with dignity presiding over its way- waird realm. Halt ! My business is to describe a heroine, — not to discuss physiognomy, with her face for a type. As I said, her nose was sensitive and proud. There might have once been scorn in the curve of her nostril. Not now. Sorrow and pity had educated away the scorn, as they had the tones of challenge from her voice. Firmness, self-respect, latent indignation, remained untouched. A strong woman, whose power was intense and passionate. Calm, till the time came, and then flame. Be- ware of arousing her! Not that there was re- venge in her face. No ; no stab or poison there. But she was a woman to die by an act of will, rather than be wronged. She was one who could hold an insulter by a steady look, while she grew paler, paler, purer, purer, with a more unearthly pureness, until she had crushed the boiling blood 110 JOHN BEENT. back into lier heart, and stood before the wretch white and chill as a statue, marble-dead. What a woman to meet in a Mormon caravan ! And yet how able to endure whatever a dastard Fate might send to crush her there ! Her hair was caught back, and severely chided out of its wish to rebel and be as beautiful as it knew was its desert. It was tendril hair, black enough to show blackness against Fulano's shoul- der. Chide her locks as she might, tliey still insisted upon flinging out here and there a slen- der curling token of their gracefulness, to prove what it might be if she would but let them have their sweet and wilful will. Her eyes were gray, with violet touches. Her eyebrows defined and square. If she had had passionate or pleading dark eyes, — the eyes that hardly repress their tears for sorrow or for joy, — and the temperament that such eyes reveal, she would long ago have fevered or wept herself to death. No woman could have looked at the disgusts of that life of hers through tears, and lived. The gray eyes meant steadiness, patience, hope without flinching, and power to master fate, or if not to master, to defy. She was somewhat pale, thin, and sallow. Plodding wearily and drearily over those dusty tvastes toward exile could not make her a merry Nut-Brown Maid. Only her thin, red lips proved "ELLEN! ELLEN!" Ill thai there were still blushes lurking out of sight. A mature woman ; beyond girlhood, body and soul. With all her grave demeanor, she could not keep down the wiles of gracefulness that ever bubbled to the surface. If she could but be her happy self, what a fair world she would suddenly create about her ! She was dressed in rough gray cloth, as any lady might be for a journey. She was evidently one whose resolute neatness repels travel-stains. After the tawdry, draggled silks of the young women we had just seen, her simplicity was charmingly fresh. Could she and they be of the same race of beings ? They were apart as far as coarse from fine, as silvern from brazen. To see her here among this horde was a horror in itself. No horror the less, that she could not blind herself to her position and her fate. She could not fail to see what a bane was beauty here. That she had done so was evi- dent. She had essayed by severe plainness of dress to erase the lady from her appearance. A very idle attempt ! There she was, do what she would, her beauty triumphing over all the wrong she did to it for duty's sake. All these observations I made with one glance. Description seems idle when one remembers how eyes can see at a flash what it took aeons to prepare for and a lifetime to form. 112 JOHN BRENT. Brent and I exchanged looks. This was the result of our fanciful presentiments. Here was visible the woman we had been dreading to find. It still seemed an impossible vision. I al- most believed that the old gentleman's blanket would rise with him and his daughter, like the carpet of Portunatus, and transport them sud- denly away, leaving us beside a Mormon wagon in Sizzum's camp and in the presence of a frowzy family cooking a supper of pork. I looked again and again. It was all real There was the neat, comfortable wagon ; there was the feeble, timid old gentleman, pottering about ; there was this beautiful girl, busy with her tea, and smiling tenderly over her father. CHAPTER XI. FATHER AND DAUGHTER. " Come, gentlemen," said the father, in a lively way. " We are all campaigners. Sit down and take a cup of tea with us. No ceremony. A la guerre, comme a la guerre. I cannot give you Sevres porcelain. I am afraid even my delf is a little cracked ; but we '11 fancy it whole and painted with roses. Now plenty of tea, Ellen dear. Guests are too rare not to be welcomed with our very best. Besides, I expect Brother Sizzum, after his camp duties are over." It was inexpressibly dreary, this feeble con- viviality. In the old gentleman's heart it was plain that disappointment and despondency were the permanent tenants. His gayety seemed only a mockery, — a vain essay to delude himself into the thought that he could be happy even for a moment. His voice, even while he jested, was hollow and sorrowful. There was a trepi- dation in his manner, half hope, half fear, as if he dreaded that some one would presently announce to him a desperate disaster, or fancied H 114 JOHN BRENT. that some sudden piece of good luck was about to befall him, and he must be all attention lest it pass to another. Nothing of the anxiety of a guilty man about him, — of one who hears pursuit in the hum of a cricket or the buzz of a bee ; only the uneasiness of one flying for- ever from himself, and hoping that some chance bliss will hold his flight and give him a moment's forgetfulness. We of course accepted the kindly invitation. Civilization was the novelty to us. Tea with a gentleman and lady was a privilege quite un heard of. We should both have been ready to devote ourselves to a woman far less charming than our hostess. But here was a pair — the beautiful daughter, the father astray — whom we must know more of. I felt myself taking a very tender interest in their welfare, revolving plans in my mind to learn their history, and, if it might be done, to persuade the father out of his delu- sion. "^ow, gentlemen," said our friend, playing his part with mild gracefulness, like an accom- plished host ; " sit down on the blankets. I can- not give you grand arm-chairs, as I might have done once in Old England, and hope to do if you ever come to see me at my house in Deseret. But really we are forgetting something very im- portant. We have not been formally introduced. FATHER AND DAUGHTEB. 115 Bless me ! that will never do. Allow me gentle- men to present myself, Mr. Hugh Clitheroe, late of Clitheroe Hall, Clitheroe, Lancashire, — a good old name, you see. And this is my daugh- ter. Miss Ellen Clitheroe. These gentlemen, my dear, will take the liberty to present themselves to you." "Mr, Richard Wade, late of California; Mr. John Brent, a roving Yankee. Pray let me aid you Miss Clitheroe." Brent took the teakettle from her hand, and filled the teapot. This little domestic office opened the way to other civil services. It was like a masquerading scene. My hand- some friend and the elegant young lady bending together over four cracked cups and as many plates of coarse earthenware, spread upon a shawl, on the dry grass. The circle of wagons, the groups of Saints about their supper fires, the cattle and the fort in the distance, made a" strangely unreal background to a woman whose proper place, for open air, was in the ancient avenue of some ancestral park, or standing on the terrace to receive groups of brilliant ladies coming up the lawn. But character is superior to circumstance, and Miss Clitheroe's self-posses- sion controlled her scenery. Her place, wher- ever it was, became her right place. The prairie, and the wagons, and the rough accessories, gave force to her refinement. 116 JOHN BKENT. Mr. Clitheroe regarded the pair with a dreamy pleasure. " Quite patriarchal, is it not ? " said he to me. " I could fancy myself Laban, and my daughter Rachel. There is a trace of the Oriental in her looks. We only need camels, and this would be a scene worthy of the times of the Eastern patri- archs and the plains of the old Holy Land. We of the Latter Day Church think much of such associations ; more I suppose than you world's people." And here the old gentleman looked at me uneasily, as if he dreaded lest I should fling in a word to disturb his illusion, or perhaps ridi- cule his fi^ith. " I have often been reminded here of the land- scape of Palestine," said I, " and those bare re- gions of the Orient. Your friends in Utah, too, refresh the association by their choice of Biblical names." " Yes ; we love to recall those early days when Jehovah was near to his people, a chosen peo- ple, who suffered for faith's sake, as we have done. Li fact, our new faith and new revelation are only revivals and continuations of the old. Our founder and our prophets give us the doc- trines of the earliest Church, with a larger light and a surer confidence." He said this with the manner of one who ia FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 117 repeating for the thousandth time a lesson, a formula which he must keep constantly before him, or its effect will be gone. In fact, his resolute assertion of his creed showed the weak belief. As he paused, he looked at me again, hoping, as I thought, that I would dispute or differ, and so he might talk against contradic- tion, a far less subtle enemy than doubt. As I did not immediately take up the discussion, he passed lightly, and with the air of one whose mind does not love to be consecutive, to another subject. "Hunters, are you not ?" said he, turning to Brent. " I am astonished that more of you American gentlemen do not profit by this great buffalo-preserve and deer-park. We send you a good shot occasionally from England." " Yes," said my friend. " I had a capital shot, and capital fellow too for comrade, this summer, in the mountains. A countryman of yours. Sir Biron Biddulph. He was wretchedly out of sorts, poor fellow, when we started. Fresh air and bold life quite set him up. A month's galloping with the buffalo, and a fortnight over the cliffs, after the big-horn, would ' put a soul under the ribs of death.' Biddulph left me to go home, a new man. I find that he has stayed in Utah, for more hunting, I suppose." Brent was kneeling at Miss Clitheroe's feet, 118 JOHN BRENT. holding a cup for her to fill. He turned toward her father as he spoke. At the name of Bid- dulph, I saw that her red lips' promise of pos- sible blushes was no false one. " Ah ! " thought I ; " here, perhaps, is the ro- mance of the Baronet's history. No wonder he found England too narrow for him, if this noble woman wovild not smile ! Perhaps he has stopped in Utah to renew his suit, or volunteer his ser- vices. A strange drama ! with new elements of interest coming in." I could not refrain from studying Miss Cli- theroe with some curiosity as I thought thus. She perceived my inquisitive look. She made some excuse, and stepped into the wagon. " Biddulph ! " said the father. " Ellen dear, Mr. Brent knows our old neighbor, Biron Bid- dulph. 0, she has disappeared, ' on hospitable thoughts intent.' I shall be delighted to meet an old friend in Deseret. We knew him inti- mately at home in better days, — no ! in those days I blindly deemed better, before I was illu- mined with the glories of the new faith, and saw the New Jerusalem with eyes of hope." Miss Clitheroe rejoined us. She had been ab- sent only a moment, but, as I could see, long enough for tears, and the repression of tears. I should have pitied her more ; but she seemed, in her stout-hearted womanhood, above pity, asking FATHER ANI> DAUGHTER. 119 no more than the sympathy the brave have al- ways ready for the sorrowful brave. Evidently to change the subject, she engaged Brent agam in his tea-table offices. I looked at that passionate fellovt" with some anxiety. He was putting a large share of earnestness in his manner of holding cups and distributing hard- tack. Why so much fervor and devotion, my friend ? Seems to me I have seen cavaliers be- fore, aiding beauties with like ardor, on the car- pet, in the parlor, over the Sevres and the silver. And when I saw it, I thought, " cavalier ! beauty ! beware, or do not beware, just as you deem best, but know that there is peril ! For love can improvise out of the steam of a teapot a romance as big and sudden and irrepressible as the Afreet that swelled from the casket by the sea-shore in the Arabian story. We sat down iipon the grass for our picnic. I should not invite the late Mr. Watteau, or even the extant Mr. Diaz, to paint us. The late Mr. Wattcau's heroes and heroines were silk and satin Arcadians ; they had valets de chambre and filles de chambre, and therefore could be not fully heroes and heroines, if proverbs be true. The present Mr. Diaz, too, charming and pretty as he is, has his place near parterres and terraces, within the reach of rake and broom. Mr. Horace Yernet is equally inadmissible, since 120 JOHN BEENT. that martial personage does not comprehend a desert, except with a foreground of blood, smoke, baggy red pantaloons, and mon General on a white horse giving the Legion of Honor to mon enfant on his last legs. But I must wait for some artist with the gayety of Mr. Watteau, the refinement of Mr. Diaz, and the soldierly force of Mr. Vernet, who can perceive the poetry of American caravan-life, and can get the heroine of our picnic at Fort Bridger to give him a sit- ting. Art is unwise not to perceive the materi- als it neglects in such scenes. Mr. Clitheroe grew more and more genial as we became better acquainted. He praised the sunshine and the climate. England had nothing like it, so our host asserted. The atmosphere of England crushed the body, as its moral atmos- phere repressed perfect freedom of thought and action. " Yes, gentlemen," said he, " I have escaped at last into the region I have longed for. I mean to renew my youth in the Promised Land, — to have my life over again, with a store of the wis- dom of age." Then he talked pleasantly of the incidents of his journey, — an impressible being, taking easily the color of the moment, like a child. He liked travel, he said ; it was dramatic action and scene- shifting, without the tragedy or the over-absorb- FATHER AXD DAUGHTER. 121 ing interest of dramatic plot. He liked to have facts come to him without being laboriously sought for, as they do in travel. The eye, with- out trouble, took in whatever appeared, and at the end of the day a traveller found himself expanded and educated without knowing it. There was a fine luxury in this, for a mature man to learn again, just as a child does, and find his lessons play. He liked this novel, ad- venturous hfe. " Think of it, sir," he said, " I have seen real Indians, splendid fellows, all in their war-paint ; just such as I used to read of with delight in your Mr. Fenimore's tales. And these prai- ries too, — I seem to have visited them already in the works of your charming Mr. Irving, — a very pleasant author, very pleasant indeed, and quite reminding me of our best essayists ; though he has an American savor too. Mr. Irving, I think, did not come out so far as this. This region has never been described by any one with a poetic eye. My brethren in the Church of the Latter Day have their duties of stern apostleship ; they cannot turn aside to the right hand nor to the left. But when the Saints are gathered in, they will begin to see the artistic features of their land. Those Wind River Moun- tains — fine name, by the way — that I saw from the South Pass, — they seem to me quite an 6 122 JOHN BRENT. ideal Sierra. Their blue edges ai\d gleaming snow-peaks were great society for us as we came by. We are very fond of scenery, sir, my daughter and I, and this breadth of effect is very impressive after England. England, you know, sir, is tame, — a snug little place, but quite a prison for people of scope. Lancashire, my old home, is very pretty, but not grand ; quite the contrary. I have grown really quite tired of green grass, and well-kept lawns, and the shaved, beardless, effeminate look of my native country. This rough nature is masculine. It reminds me of the youth of the world. I like to be in the presence of strong forces. I am not afraid of the Orson feeling. Besides, in Lancashire, particularly, we never see the sun ; we see smoke ; we breathe smoke ; smoke spoils the fra- grance and darkens the hue of all our life. 1 hate chimneys, sir ; I have seen great fortunes go up them. I might perhaps tell you some- thing of my own experience in looking up a certain tall chimney not a hundred miles from CHtheroe, and seeing ancestral acres fly up it, and ancestral pictures and a splendid old man- sion all going off in smoke. But you are a stranger, and do not care about hearing my old gossip. Besides, what is the loss of houses and lands, if one finds the pearl of great price, and wins the prophet's crown and the saint's throne ? " FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 123 And here the gray-haired, pale, dreamy old gentlenian paused, and a half-quenched lire glim- mered in his eye. His childish, fanatical am- bition stirred him, and he smiled with a look of triumph. I was silent in speechless pity. His daughter turned, and smiled with almost tearful tenderness upon her father. " I have not heard you so animated for a long time, dear father," she said. " Mr. Wade seems quite to inspire you." "Yes, my dear, he has been talking on many very interesting topics." I had really done nothing except to bow, and utter those civil monosyllables which are the " Hear ! hear ! " of conversation. If I had been silent. Brent had not. While the garrulous old gentleman was prattling on at full speed, I had heard all the time my friend's low, melodious voice, as he talked to the lady. He was a trained artist in the fine art of sym- pathy. His own early sorrows had made him infinitely tender with all that suffer. To their hearts he came as one that had a right to enter, as one that knew their malady, and was com- manded to lay a gentle touch of soothing there. It is a great power to have known the worst and bitterest that can befall the human life, and yet not be hardened. No sufferer can resist 124 JOHN BEENT. the fine magnetism of a wise and unintrusive pity. It is as mild and healing as music by night to fevered sleeplessness. The lady's protective armor of sternness was presently thrown aside. She perceived that she need not wear it against a man who was brother to every desolate soul, — sisterly indeed, so del- icate was his comprehension of the wants of a woman's nature. In fact, both father and daugh- ter, as soon as they discovered that we were ready to be their friends, met us frankly. It was easy to see, poor souls ! that it was long since they had found any one fit company for them, any one whose presence could excite the care- beguiling exhilaration of worthy society. ) They savored the aroma of good-breeding with appe- tite. CHAPTER XII. A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. Me. Clitheeoe's thoughts loved to recur to his native Lancashire, smoky though its air might be, and clean-shaved the grass of its lawns. I could not help believing that all the enthusiasm of this weak, gentle nature for the bleak plains and his pioneer life was a delusion. It would have been pretty talk for an after-dinner rhap- sody at the old mansion he had spoken of in England. There, as he paced with me, a guest, after pointing out the gables, wings, oriels, porches, that had clustered about the old build- ing age after age, he might have waved it away into a vision, and spoken with disdain of civil- ization, and with delight of the tent and the caravan. It had the flavor of Arcady, and the Golden Age, and the simple childhood of the world, when an enthusiastic Rousseauist Mar- quis talked in '89 of the rights of man and uni- versal fraternity ; it would seem a crazy mockery if the same enthusiast had held the same strain a few years later, in the tumbril, as he rolled 126 JOHN BEENT. slowly along through cruel crowds to the guillo- tine. Speaking of Lancashire, we fell upon the sub- ject of coal-mining. I was surprised to find that Mr. Clitheroe had a practical knowledge of that business. He talked for the first time without any of his dreamy, vague manner. His informa- tion was full and clear. He let daylight into those darksome pits. " I am a mmer, too," said I, " but only of gold, a baser and less honorable substance than coal. Your account has a professional interest to me. You talk like an expert." " I ought to be. If I once saw half my for- tune fly up a factory chimney, I saw another half bury itself in a coal-pit. I have been bur- ied myself in one. I am not ashamed to say it ; I have made daily bread for myself and my daughter with pick, shovel, and barrow, in a dark coal-mine, in the same county where I was once the head of the ancient gentry, and where I saw the noblest in the land proud to break my bread and drink my wine. I am not ashamed of it. No, I glory that in that black cavern, where day- light never looked, the brightness of the new faith found me, and showed the better paths where I now walk, and shall walk upward and onward imtil I reach the earthly Sion first, and then the heavenly." A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 127 iigain the old gentleman's eye kindled, and his chest expanded. What a tragic life he was hinting ! My heart yearned toward him. I had never known what it was to have the guidance and protection of a father. Mine died when I was a child. I longed to find a compensation for my own want, — and a bitter one it had sometimes been, — in being myself the guardian of this errant wayfarer, launched upon lethal currents. " Your faith is as bright as ever. Brother Hugh," said a rasping voice behind me, as Mr. Clitheroe was silent. " You are an example to us all. The Chiu-ch is highly blessed in such an earnest disciple." Elder Sizzum was the speaker. He smiled in a wolfish fashion over the group, and took his seat beside the lady, like a privileged guest. " Ah, Brother Sizzum ! " said Mr. Clitheroe, with a cheerless attempt at welcome, very differ- ent from the frank courtesy he had showed to ward us, " we have been expecting you. Ellen dear, a cup of tea for our friend." Miss Clitheroe rose to pour out tea for him. Sheep's clothing instantly covered the apostle's rather wolfish demeanor. He assumed a man- ner of gamesome, sheepish devotion. When he called her Sister Ellen, with a famiUar, tender air, I saw painful blushes redden the lady's cheeks. 128 JOHN BRENT. Brent noticed the pain and the blush. He looked away from the group toward the blue sierra far away to the south ; a hard expression came into his face, such as I had not seen there since the old days of his battling with Swerger. Trouble ahead ! Sizzum's presence quenched the party. And, indeed, our late cheerfulness was untimely, at the best. It was mockery, — as if the Marquis should have sung merry chansons in the tum- bril. Miss Clitheroe at once grew cold and stern. Nothing could be more distant than her manner toward the saint. She treated him as a high- bred woman can treat a scrub, — sounding with every gesture, and measuring with every word, the ineflfaceable gulf between them. Yet she was thoroughly civil as hostess. She even seemed to fight against herself to be friendly. But it was clear to a by-stander that she loathed the apostle. That she was not charmed with his society, even his coarse nature could not fail to discover. Anywhere else the scene would have been comic. Here he had the power. No es- cape ; n3 refuge. That thrust all comedy out of the drama, and left only very hateful tragedy. Still it was a cruel semblance of comedy over a tragic under-plot, to see the Mormon's cringing approaches, and that exquisite creature's calm A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 129 rebuffs. Sizzum felt himself pinned in his proper place, and writhed there, with an evil look, that said he was noting all and treasuring all against his day of vengeance. And the poor, feeble old father, — how all his geniality was blighted and withered away ! He was no more the master of revels at a festival, but the ruined man, with a bailiff in disguise at his dinner-table. Querulous tones murmured in his voice. The decayed gentleman disappeared ; the hapless fanatic took his place. Phrases of cant, and the peculiar Mormon slang and profan- ity, gave the color to his conversation. He ap- pealed to Sizzum constantly. He was at once the bigoted disciple and the cowed slave. Toward his daughter his manner was sometimes timorously pleading, sometimes almost surly. Why could she not repress her disgust at the holy man, at least in the presence of strangers ? — that seemed to be his feeling ; and he strove to withdraw at- tention from her by an eager, trepidating attempt to please his master. In short, the vulgar, hard- headed knave had this weak, lost gentleman thor- oughly in his power. Mr. Clitheroe was like a lamb whom the shepherd intends first to shear close, then to worry to death with curs, and at last to cut up into keebaubs. Brent and I kept aloof as much as we might. We should only have insulted the chosen vessel, 6* 1 130 JOHN BRENT. and so injured our friends. Lideed, our pres- ence seemed little welcome to Sizzum. He of course knew that the Gentiles saw through him, and despised him frankly. There is nothing more uneasy than a scrub hard at work to please a woman, while by-standers whom he feels to be his betters observe without interference. But we could not amuse ourselves with the scene ; it sickened us more and more. Sunset came speedily, — the delicious, dreamy sunset of October. In the tender regions of twi- light, where the sky, so mistily mellow, met the blue horizon, the western world became a world of happy hope. Could it be that wrong and. sin dwelt there in that valley far away among the mountains ! Baseness where that glory rested ! Foulness underneath that crescent moon ! Could it be that there was one unhappy, one impure heart within the cleansing, baptismal flow of that holy light of evening ! With sunset. Elder Sizzum, after some oily vulgarisms of compliment to the lady, walked off on camp duty. We also rose to take our leave. We must look ifter our horses. Mr. Clitheroe's old manner returned the in- stant his spiritual guide left us. " Pray come and see us again this evening, gentlemen," said he. A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 131 " We will certainly," said Brent, looking to- ward Miss Clitlieroe for her invitation. It did not come. And I, from my position as Chorus, thought, " She is wise not to en- courage in herself or my friend this brief in- timacy. Mormons will not seem any the better company to-morrow for her relapse into the society of gentlemen to-night." " yes ! " said Mr. Clitheroe, interpreting Brent's look ; " my daughter will be charmed to see you. To tell you the truth, our breth- ren in the camp are worthy people ; we sym- pathize deeply in the faith ; but they are not altogether in manners or education quite such as we have been sometimes accustomed to. It is one of the infamous wrongs of our English system of caste that it separates brother men, manners, language, thought, and life. We have as yet been able to have little except religious communion with our fellow-travellers toward the Promised Land, — except, of course, with Brother Sizzum, who is, as you see, quite a man of society, as well as an elect apostle of a great cause. We are quite selfish in asking you to re- peat your visit. Besides the welcome we should give you for yourselves, we welcome you also as a novelty." And then he muttered, half to himself, " God forgive me for speaking after the flesh!" 132 JOHN BRENT. ii Come, Wade," said my friend. Ajid he griped my arm almost savagely. " Until this evening then, Mr. Clitheroe." As we moved away from the wagon, where the lady stood, so worn and sad, and yet so lovely, her poor father's only guard and friend, we met Murker and Larrap, They were saun- tering about, prying into the wagons, inspect- ing the groups, making observations — that were perhaps only curiosity — with a base, guilty, bur- glarious look. " He, he ! " laughed Larrap, leering at Brent. " I '11 be switched ef you 're not sharp. You know where to look for the pooty gals, blowed ef yer don't ! " " Hold your tongue ! " Brent made a spring at the fellow. " No offence ! no offence ! " muttered he, shrink- ing back, with a cowardly, venomous look. " Mind your business, and keep a civil tongue in your head, or there will be offence ! " Brent turned and walked off in silence. Neither of us was yet ready to begin our talk on this evening's meeting. Our horses, if not their masters, were quite ready for joyous conversation. They had en- countered no pang in the region of Fort Bridger. Grass in plenty was there, and they neighed us good evening in their most dulcet tones. A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. 133 They frisked about, and, neighing and frisking, informed us that, in their opinion, the world was all right, — a perfectly jolly place, with abun- dance to eat, little to do, and everybody a friend. A capital world ! according to Pumps and Don Fulano. They felt no trouble, and saw none in store. Who would not be an ani- mal and a horse, unless perchance an omnibus horse sprawling on the Russ pavement, or a fam- ily horse before a carryall, or in fact any horse in slavish position, as most horses are. We shifted oiu' little caballada to fresh graz- ing-spots sheltered by a brake. We meant to camp there apart from the Mormon caravan. The talk of our horses had not cheered us. We still busied ourselves m silence. Presently, as I looked toward the train, I observed two figures in the distance lurking about Mr. Clitheroe's wagon. " See," said I ; " there are those two gamblers